1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the sewing art and more particularly to a method of and tools for forming sewing machine binder strip folders.
2. Prior Art
The manufacture of clothing and other fabric items often involves the stitching of a cloth binder strip to the fabric. In some cases, the binder strip is sewn to an edge of the fabric to finish the edge. In this case, the binder strip may be folded laterally about the edge. In other cases, the binder strip may be sewn to fabric for a purpose other than finishing an edge of the fabric. In any event, the present invention is concerned with those binder strip stitching applications which require lateral folding of the binder before it is stitched to the fabric.
When stitching a binder strip to an edge of fabric to finish the edge, for example, the binder strip may be folded about the edge so that the fabric edge is disposed within the binder folder. In other cases, the folded binder is applied entirely to one side of the fabric.
Binder strip folders may be designed to produce a wide variety of binder strip folds. The present invention will be described in connection with binder strip folds referred to herein as single, single/double and double/double folds. In a single fold, the binder strip is essentially folded in half along its longitudinal center line. The single/double fold is similar to the single fold except that one side of the single fold is essentially folded on itself along a longitudinal fold line of the binder strip. In a double/double fold, each side of the single fold is folded on itself along a longitudinal center line of the binder strip.
Sewing machine folder attachments exist for folding a binder strip as the latter is fed to the sewing machine needle along with the fabric to which the binder strip is stitched. These folders may be designed to form the single, single/double, and double/double folds just mentioned. These existing folding attachments, however, are costly, difficult and time-consuming if not impossible to obtain, and are otherwise less than totally satisfactory from the standpoint of the end user. Accordingly, a definite need exists for a better way of providing binder folders to the end user. The present invention satisfies this need.